Dear friends:

As requested by a South African reader, please pray for South Africa today.  She says:

Today is the day the workers in all state departments have decided to strike.   I'm not sure how many people are going to strike and whether there are departments that won't strike or perhaps individuals in various departments that refuse to or see the folly in striking.    I know that schools and hospitals are involved and there is already concern as to what is going to happen to seriously ill patients etc.   School children were arrested yesterday for staging a riot in their town "because" they say, " we are angry that the teachers aren't at school.  We cannot afford to miss any school days since this is our final year and if we can't write our exams it will ruin our future!"

Would it be possible to do a world wide request through your newsletter list for a breakthrough for Jesus in South Africa?  Crowd frenzy becomes so irrational and with human rights being the point of reference, the only thing we can expect out of this strike is chaos and death.

She included comments from Provincial leader Hansie Louw:

Something is fundamentally wrong with our society.  We are being bombarded by news of violent crime on a daily basis.  Not only is violent crime on the up, it would seem, but the sickening thing is that violent crimes also seem to be getting more brutal by the day.

Only yesterday the public was informed about the killing of policemen, schoolchildren killing other schoolchildren, drive-by killings, taxi violence - it just never ends.

Quite clearly our countrymen are in need of discipline.  Minister Pandor is right. We seem to assume that children have the right to be rude and unruly.

I think the problem lies much deeper than many are willing to concede.  Our obsession with egocentric human rights is bearing bad fruit. 

We have made ourselves believe that nothing is more important than that which serves our personal interests.  In the process we have lost sight of the necessity of considering the rights of others.  Common decency and respect for others have fallen beside the road of self-interest.  We have become a desperately egocentric society.  We have become ugly, in the deepest sense of the word.

We need to embrace true Christian values, based on the commandment to love God above all, and your neighbour as yourself.  The focus must shift from my rights, to upholding the rights of others.  That will most certainly give this nation a totally different face.